Trick bosses are annoying

(A bit of a lull, and back to our ordinary scheduled blogging… more backlogged stuff coming soonish?)

Yesterday, I had was commenting on a rather ridiculous video and said a carefully weighed opinion. In case the video disappears, it’s basically Chris-chan’s ode to Playstation 3, a “life enchancement device” as he affectionately calls it. In case the video disappears, here’s what I said:

<blockquote>I have had an occasional tendency to go in obsessive fanboy mode, but
after this, I’ll never ever feel bad afterwards - because I’ve never
had even the slightest inclination to call my favourite things “life
enhancement devices”. My life’s not ipso facto any better after pwning
Mogenar today, dammit…</blockquote>Well, actually, that Mogenar thing… that Mogenar thing… I think it’s pretty much safe to say that games are just something that you buy to get more challenges and intellectual stimulation. They don’t enhance your life; they make it harder and more interesting.

And Mogenar, if anything, is exactly the sort of thing that makes your life a hell.(Note: May have spoilers for Metroid Prime series)

In case you aren’t following the links, Mogenar is the first “real” boss fight in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. There’s always a point in Metroid Prime series, it seems, where you get seriously stumped by an annoying Trick Boss. In Metroid Prime, I got stumped by, er, Flaaghra at first, because I was a newbie - and then, Thardus. The rest of the game was relatively straightforward. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes ramped this up by making the subbosses much harder than the real bosses: Boost Guardian and Spider Guardian were just hell.

And now, Mogenar. Basically, the annoying thing about the fight is that the boss has one damn way to damage it, and it’s not easy. In fact, the boss is specifically designed so that as soon as average person shoots at it, they immediately realise they should have been a little bit faster. There’s no unofficial way to whittle down the enemy’s strength, just the tricky one. And obviously, the moment you get any damage done, the boss will stop doing whatever the hell it was doing and hint that it is about to regenerate all of that hard-won damage right back, and you have to stop trying to pathetically damage it and deal with that problem.

Okay, in the end, the boss fight wasn’t really all that super hard. But it just depressed me for a while - especially when I was stuck with another trick boss fight in Tomb Raider: Anniversary!

(Note: …and potential spoilers for Tomb Raider: Anniversary)

I managed to get a little bit less stressed about the Mogenar boss fight because I managed to look at the guides. After MP2, I’m much more inclined to look at walkthroughs again.

TRA’s centaur boss was similar - less stress thanks to guide perusal. The trick to winning that fight was to do an adrenaline-rush shot, grab the centaur’s shield with grappling hook, and use that to one’s advantage. I figured out the shield part without any assistance. Too bad I didn’t figure out the adrenaline rush part - because it was weird.

Basically, the adrenaline rush thing can make the centaur freeze - in two different states. If you succeed, you can grab the shield. If not, it’s possible to make the centaurs collide and make one of them freeze in a state where you can’t grab the shield.

sigh Bug or glitch? Oh well, it’s all over now - and both bosses have been dealt with. I’m having fun again! My life is better!